Cambodia has been growing rapidly over the past few years, but remains one of the poorest countries in East Asia. This paper analyzes rural poverty in Cambodia to identify the factors that explain its occurrence and persistence. The reduction of rural poverty in Cambodia requires (1) improvements in agricultural productivity and (2) the establishment of other income-earning opportunities for the rural population. Our econometric investigation of the 2004 Cambodian Socio-Economic Survey shows that the main causes of poverty differ between landowners and the landless, and between different regions. Increasing inputs to agriculture (e.g., fertilizers) is critical to increasing the welfare of landowning poor, and linkages with the rest of the economy are of vital importance to both landowners and the landless poor.

The increase in foreign direct investments raises concerns about labor market consequences in many countries. It is feared that multinational firms are inclined to shift jobs abroad and increase job volatility. We use firm-level data to examine if multinationality and foreign ownership affect the wage elasticity of labor demand. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish the effect on different skill groups of employees. We find no general difference in wage elasticity between foreign and domestic firms but the wage elasticity is higher in multinational firms than in national firms, in particular for medium-skilled workers.

This paper examines the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on employment in the Chinese manufacturing sector. As one of the world's largest recipients of FDI, China has arguably benefited from foreign multinational enterprises in various respects. However, one of the main challenges for China, and other developing countries, is job creation, and the effect of FDI on employment is uncertain. The effect depends on the amount of jobs created within foreign firms as well as the effect of FDI on employment in domestic firms. We analyse FDI and employment in China using a large sample of manufacturing firms for the period 1998–2004. Our results show that FDI has positive effects on employment growth. The relatively high employment growth in foreign firms is associated with their firm characteristics and their high survival rate. Employment growth is also relatively high in private domestic Chinese firms. There also seems to be a positive indirect effect of FDI on employment in private domestically-owned firms, presumably caused by spillovers.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been important in the growth and global integration of developing economies. Both Northeast and Southeast Asia, especially the latter, have been part of this development, with increasing inflows of FDI and greater foreign participation in local economies. However, Indonesia has been an outlier within the region. Inflows of FDI have been lower to Indonesia than to other countries, especially in manufacturing, and they have been lower than could be expected from Indonesia's size, population and other country characteristics. We show that the inflows that have occurred have benefited Indonesia, and use the East Asian experience to identify measures that are likely to increase these flows. A relatively poor business environment, inefficient government institutions, low levels of education and poor infrastructure all seem to be important explanations for the low inflows of FDI to Indonesia.

Timor-Leste began its independence as one of the poorest nations in the world. Substantial progress has been made thereafter but the challenges for future development are numerous. High population growth and modest growth of GDP means that per capita income is declining and that the extent of poverty is increasing. For this situation to change, income opportunities other than those provided by subsistence agriculture are needed. Considering the low level of education and the keen competition for skilled personnel this, however, is difficult. So far, it seems that most skilled workers are being absorbed by the public sector and that this is pushing up the already high skilled wage level. That, in turn, affects the competitiveness of the private sector negatively and acts as an obstacle to the creation of employment opportunities outside agriculture.

Timor-Leste is among the youngest nations in the world. It began its independence under difficult circumstances: poverty is widespread, education is poor, the industrial sector is non-existent, and political turbulence is on the rise. On the positive side, future oil revenues are predicted to be substantial, which could potentially be a great help in Timor-Leste's struggle for development. This paper examines critically the possibility for Timor-Leste to use oil revenues to achieve economic development. It describes how difficult it is to estimate the future revenues because of volatile prices, territorial disputes, and insufficient seismological mapping. It continues with a discussion of the 'resource curse' - the difficulty of combining natural resources with economic development. Moreover, the particular challenges for Timor-Leste's development are dealt with at some length, as are possible ways to avoid the resource curse.

Science & Technology (S&T) is high on the Chinese policy agenda and the country aims at becoming an innovation-driven economy. Small firms have been important in technology development in other East Asian countries but the situation in Chinese small firms has been far less explored. We examine how much S&T has been accounted for by small firms and how their S&T intensity differs across industries and ownership groups. We also analyse how various firm characteristics differ over size categories and S&T status. This study is based on newly processed micro-level data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics with information on a large number of S&T indicators for manufacturing firms in China in 2000 and 2004. Our results suggest that the role of small firms in Chinese S&T is similar to that in many other countries. They account for a comparably small share of total S&T and most small firms are not engaged in any S&T. However, those small firms that do engage in S&T tend to be more S&T intensive and have a higher output in terms of patents than larger Chinese S&T firms.

China needs a substantial growth of modern-sector employment to absorb its huge supply of underemployed people and new labor market entrants. The present crisis with its massive layoffs of workers makes the issue even more pressing. Although the government has announced large public investments to deal with the business cycle downturn, less attention has been paid to the structural aspects of Chinese underemployment. One exception is the recent emphasis of technology development. However, Science and technology (S&T) can have both positive and negative effects on employment. Using information from a large sample of manufacturing firms in China between 1996 and 2004, we analyze how S&T affects employment. Our results suggest that S&T does not promote employment growth.

Most firms and plants in developing countries produce only for the domestic market and few are able to export. One plausible hypothesis is that foreign networks decrease export costs and that plants with large amounts of such networks will be relatively likely to start exporting. We focus on two types of foreign networks: foreign ownership and imports of intermediate products. Our results suggest that plants in Indonesian manufacturing with any foreign ownership are substantially more likely to start exporting than wholly domestically owned plants. The results remain robust to alternative model specifications and after controlling for other plant characteristics. There is no effect on exports of imports of intermediate products.